Meth Bust

December 13, 1999, 12:00 AM

The timing coincidence, the results rare. Three big drug busts in just three days and all of the raids turned up meth. KELO-LAND'S Beth Fuller runs down the list of suspects and what their arrests mean to the Sioux Falls drug scene.

This is what 900-dollars of meth looks like. Little baggies all wrapped up, for what police say was distribution. After being arrested on a warrant charge, police say 34-year old Michael Thomas tried to eat these drugs, in the booking room. Police seized the packets right from his mouth.

Drug charges also landed 42-year old Robin Davis in jail. When police pulled her over for a traffic stop Friday, they say they found meth in her car. A search of her house turned up 18 hits of LSD and almost 2 pounds of pot.

But the biggest raid landed 6-people in jail. Police call arrests of the 5-people from Sioux Falls and a rural Minnehaha county man, substantial. "We consider them major players in the drug scene of Sioux Falls," Lt. Mark Moberly a detective in the Sioux Falls Police Narcotics division says. With those arrests, police found $15-thousand dollars worth of meth and $3-thousand dollars in cash.

Moberly says it's naive to believe these arrests make meth hard to find, but he says they took a big hit out of the Sioux Falls drug scene. Roger Persing, Kay Klueber, Michael Vandewalle, Michael Phannes, Greg Sims, Jerry Stoltenburg are the 6-people charged in the largest raid. Because of the amount of drugs seized, their case will be tried in Federal court.